Thousands gather at Vatican in farewell homage to Benedict

Date: February 14 2013

Rome

POPE Benedict XVI has made his first public appearance since the shock announcement of his resignation.

Thousands attended his weekly audience at the Vatican on Wednesday as the faithful gathered to bid farewell to the pontiff, who reiterated his intention to become the first Pope to resign in almost 600 years.

Italian television channels carried the ceremony live from the Sala Nervi, an auditorium inside the Vatican, which was filled to its capacity of 6000.

The audience broke into applause when Benedict began to speak in Italian.

Benedict repeated that he would resign on February 28, saying he no longer had the strength to continue as leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

He thanked public for ''the love and prayer with which you have accompanied me'' and called on the faithful ''to continue to pray for me, for the church and to pray for the new Pope''.

The weekly audience consists of teachings and readings by the Pope and other church officials, conducted in a range of languages.

Meanwhile, the cardinal who could become the first African Pope in Rome in more than 1500 years has laid out a conservative vision for dealing with ''alternative lifestyles''.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, a 64-year-old Ghanaian, is the bookmakers' early favourite to succeed Pope Benedict XVI. On Tuesday he said his biggest challenge, should he be elected, would be to maintain an orthodox Catholic doctrine while ''at the same time knowing how to apply it so that you do not become irrelevant in a world that has continuous changes''.

Cardinal Turkson, who holds one of the most important jobs in the Roman Curia and has been repeatedly promoted by Pope Benedict, was quick to take a conservative line on social issues.

''We need to find ways of dealing with the challenges coming up from society and culture,'' he said, adding that the church needed to ''evangelise'', or convert, those who had embraced ''alternative lifestyles, trends or gender issues''.

Cardinal Turkson has caused controversy by screening a video claiming that Europe faced being overrun by Muslims and by insisting that condoms were not the solution to preventing HIV.

The African prelate said he had reflected on the enormous personal burden of becoming the leader of the Catholic Church. ''It would certainly mean a lot if I had to be a Pope,'' he said. ''If I was elected Pope it would signal a lot of [personal] change. Very big change in a lot of regards. I have been an archbishop, which involved a certain amount of leadership and now having to do this on a world level, the dimensions expand almost infinitely.''

Cardinal Turkson said the Vatican needed to ''restore and repair'' an image that had been ''badly compromised by recent scandals''.

BLOOMBERG, with TELEGRAPH

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